Sikkim Manipal University - MBA - PM0011 - Project Planning and Scheduling

Semester: 3 - Assignment Set: 2

Question 1: Describe the four scope elements listed by PMBOK.

Answer:

The scope is the most important element to understand about any project. All planning and
allocation of resources are anchored to this understanding. Scope creep is a significant risk in
software development projects. We discuss why this is so, and how to avoid or at least mitigate
the risk. New software is usually developed as a result of a customer identifying a need. The
next step is to specify how the software will meet that need; specifically, what functionality will
be developed. The scope and budget are set, the team knows what they're delivering, and
everyone is ready to begin. The Project Management Institute Project Management Body of
Knowledge (PMBOK) defines product scope as the features and functions that are to be
included in a product or service. It defines project scope as the work that must be done to
deliver a product with the specified features and functions. Project scope management is
defined as the processes required to ensure that the project includes all the work required, and
only the work required, to complete the project successfully.

The PMBOK Guide addresses four elements related to scope:

Scope: Scope is the summation of all deliverables required as part of the project. This includes
all products, services and results.

Project Scope:

This is the work that must be completed to achieve the final scope of the project, namely the
products, services and end results.

Scope Statement:

This is a document that provides the basis for making future decisions such as scope changes.
The intended use of the document is to make sure that all stakeholders have a common
knowledge of the project scope. Included in the document are the objectives, description of the
deliverables, end result or project, and justification of the project. The scope statement
addresses seven questions who, what, when, why, where, how and how money. This document
validates the project scope against the statement of work provided by the customer.

Statement of Work:

The statement of work (SOW) is a narrative description of the work required for the project.
The complexity of the SOW is determined by the desires of top management, the customer,
and / or user groups. A statement of work describes the actual work that is going to be
performed on the project which, when combined with specifications, usually from the basis for
a contractual agreement on the project. As a derivative of the WBS, the statement of work
(sometimes called scope of work) describes what is going to be accomplished, a description of
the tasks, and the deliverable end products that will be produced, such as hardware, software,
tests, documentation and training. The statement of work also includes reference to
specifications, directives or standards, that is, the guidance to be followed in the project work.
The statement of work includes input required from other tasks involving the project and a key
element of the customer „s request for proposal there can be misinterpretation of the
statement of work which can affect the results of the project adversary.

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Sikkim Manipal University - MBA - PM0011 - Project Planning and Scheduling

Semester: 3 - Assignment Set: 2

Common causes of misinterpretation are:

Mixing tasks, specifications, approvals, and special instructions.

 Using imprecise language (“nearly, “optimum”, “approximately” etc.”).
No pattern, structure or chorological order.
Wide variation in size of tasks.
Wide variation in how to describe details of the work.
Failing to get third party review.

Misinterpretations of the statement of work can and will occur no matter, how careful everyone
has been, the result is creeping scope. Which is likely to upset costs and schedules? The best
way to control creeping scope is with a good definition of requirements up front.

Integration:

The project control process is built on the concepts of integrating data related to scope,
performing organization, and cost and of producing performance metrics by assimilating and
evaluating all information on a common basis. It is the responsibility of the project manager to
integrate the efforts of the assigned human resources, the variety of equipment supplies, and
materials and the technologies to produce the project deliverables on schedule within the
budget.

The amount of integration a project requires is a function of several factors:

 The number of components. The more components there are to a project, the more
effort that needs to be spent on integration. The team components refers to physical
parts or systems, to different functional contributions (e.g. marketing, finance,
production), as well as to different vested interests of stakeholders (e.g. environmental
impact, economic development, technology transfer).

 The degree to which the projects components are different from each other.

 These differences may be differences in functional specialization. For example, marking,

production and financial components of a commercial project on the differences may
originate from the different technologies used in producing the different components or
sub systems of a physical product.

Business need for a Scope change:

The must be valid business purpose for a scope change. This includes the following factors at a
minimum:

 An assessment of the customer’s needs and the added value that the scope charge will
provide.
 An assessment of the market needs including the time required to make the scope
change, the payback period, return on investment, and whether the final product selling
price will be overpriced for the market.
 An assessment on the impact on the length of the product life cycle.
 An assessment on the competitions ability to initiate the scope change.

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Sikkim Manipal University - MBA - PM0011 - Project Planning and Scheduling

Semester: 3 - Assignment Set: 2

 Is there a product liability associate with the scope change and can it impact over
image?

Question 2: List the inputs, outputs, tools and techniques for the vendor management
process.

Answer:

Vendor Management:

For vendor management the basic requirements the existence of a vendor, which would only
happen if product, good or service is acquired at the best cost to meet the need of the project
This process is about documentation of purchasing decisions and policies and approaches for
product outsourcing.

The major inputs required for this process are:

 Scope baseline:
This is the component of project plan which gives information about the project scope,
listed in the scope statement, lists the work breakdown structure and description of the
WBS elements.

 Requirement documentation:
This document would have information about the project requirements both technical and
legal along with the legal implications.

 Teaming agreement:

They are contractual agreements made between two or more parties as a result of
partnership or joint venture.

 Risk register:

It is document which lists the identified risks, risks which have already occurred in similar
projects in the past, and cost involved in risk mitigation.

 Activity resource requirements:

This document lists the types and quantity of resource required for project activities. It also
lists the skillset required and quality of material required and other characteristics of the
resources.

 Project schedule:

This structured document gives us the start and end date of each activity. It gives a
detailed description of the activities to be performed in the project, their dependencies and
requirements. They can be represented in the following format:

 Milestone chart
 Bar charts

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Sikkim Manipal University - MBA - PM0011 - Project Planning and Scheduling

Semester: 3 - Assignment Set: 2

 Project schedule network diagrams

 Activity cost estimates:

They are measurable calculation of the feasible cost required to complete project work

 Cost performance baseline:

It is an approved budget at competition, which is used for monitoring and controlling cost
and cost variances.

 Enterprise environmental factors:

Enterprise environmental factors include information about organizational culture,

processes, infrastructure, government standards, human resource data, PMIS and
stakeholder information etc.

 Organizational Assets: this includes all process related assets, which an organization
captures, which can impact project success. This can range from organization policies,
procedure, processes to knowledge base created from previous project experiences.

The tools and techniques used for this process are:

 Make-or-Buy analysis: This analysis helps take a call whether it is beneficial to buy a
product from third party or make it. Even making should happen in-house or should be
outsourced. Depending on what gives the maximum profit, choice is made.

 Expert judgment: this is about taking opinion from an experienced about whether the
product should be made or bought, or its production should be outsourced.

 Contract types: whenever the product is to be created and procurement form third-party
is done, it is assumed that the failure of the product risk i8s shared with the third party.
Contract type defines how the risk shared. The various types of contract are Fixed = price,
cost reimbursable, time material contact.

The major outputs of this process are:

 Procurement documents:

The procurement documents are procurement management plan, which consists of the
contract type, issues management, type of estimates, how to manage the multiple
vendors, procurement statement of work, which defines the work to be accomplished as a
part of the procurement contract, the proposal sent to the vendor, list of vendors who bid
for the proposal, terms and conditions of the contract, RFP (request for proposal) etc.

 Make-or-buy decisions:

This document mentions whether the product is to be bought or made, if any risk sharing
policy used etc.

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Sikkim Manipal University - MBA - PM0011 - Project Planning and Scheduling

Semester: 3 - Assignment Set: 2

Question 3: Draw a network diagram and answer the questions below:

a) Activity 1 can start immediately and has an estimated duration of 4 weeks.
b) Activity 2 can start after activity 01 is completed and has an estimated
duration of 5 weeks
c) Activity 03 can start after activity 01 is completed and has an estimated
duration of 5 weeks
d) Activity 04 can start after activity 02 is completed and has an estimated
duration of 8 weeks
e) Activity 05 can start after activity 04 is completed and after activity 03 is
completed this activity takes 5 weeks.

1) Calculate the start and end time of the all the activities in the network
diagram.
2) Calculate the slack value of the task.

Answer:

A project network diagram, also known as a precedence diagram, is a handmade or software-

created diagram that shows the relationships in time and dependency of steps needed to
complete a project. The diagram clarifies which steps can precede others, which steps must
succeed others, and which can occur simultaneously, as well as other project constraints. It
also shows when lead time allows beginning one task before another is complete as well as
when lag time is needed after a step has been completed before a succeeding step can
commence. A project network diagram is helpful in computing start and end dates,
apportioning resources and personnel, and analyzing scheduling choices.

There are a variety of ways to create a graphical representation of a project network diagram.
It is common to use left to right progression to show change from earlier time, at the left, to
later time, at the right. It is also common to prepare for creating a project network diagram by
preparing a chart of activities, roughly in chronological order, with verbal notes about
dependencies.

Precedence Diagramming Method (PDM):

It is a method for constructing project schedule network diagram that has rectangular boxes,
depicting nodes and arrows connecting the boxes, depicting the logical relationship between
the activities. This technique is also called Activity on Node (AON).

To make our diagramming easier, we need to create a table of all the activities, their
predecessors, and their durations.

Activity Predecessor Duration

Start - -
1 Start 4 weeks
2 1 5 weeks
3 1 5 weeks
4 2 8 weeks
5 3 and 4 5 weeks

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Sikkim Manipal University - MBA - PM0011 - Project Planning and Scheduling

Semester: 3 - Assignment Set: 2

1) Calculation of start and end time of all the activities in the network diagram.

Sum the duration of each activity on the path.

Start - 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 End is 4 + 5 +5 + 8 + 5 = 27 weeks

2) Calculation of the slack value of the task.

Tasks possessing a difference among early and late dates are said to possess slack (or
float) and such tasks are known as non-critical tasks. To calculate slack values for each
task, use the formula:
TS = LF-ES Duration

Question 4: list and define the processes in project time management.

Answer:

The Project Time Management knowledge area is concerned with scheduling project activities
and the completion of the project. In the previous Scope Management knowledge area, we
established work packages from deliverables. The work we perform in the Time Management
processes will further decompose the work packages into explicit activities that we’ll use to
establish the project schedule.

Time management processes can help you ensure that a project is finished on time. These
processes enable you to estimate the duration of activities and identify the resources needed to
carry out these activities within the project scope.

It all starts with the schedule management plan. This plan is part of the overall project
management plan. It contains scheduling methodologies and tools that will be used throughout

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Sikkim Manipal University - MBA - PM0011 - Project Planning and Scheduling

Semester: 3 - Assignment Set: 2

the duration of the project. This plan also sets the format and criteria for developing and
controlling schedule management. How formal or detailed the plan needs to be depends on the
organization and the project itself.

The scheduling methodology that you apply to a project generally depends on the process
assets and tools that an organization typically uses. Different scheduling tools will be used for
different types of projects and organizations. Tools and techniques that you can use to develop
the schedule include schedule network analysis, critical path method, critical chain method,
resource levelling, what-if scenario analysis, applying leads and lags, and schedule
compression. The most common methods of schedule representation are PERT network
diagrams, Gantt charts, and lists of milestones.

Activity Definition:

 The process of identifying and documenting the specific activities that must be
performed to produce the various project deliverables identified in the WBS.
 Define the activities such that the project objectives will be met.
 Input includes: WBS, scope statement, historical information, constraints, and
assumptions
 Methods used:
• Decomposition: Involves subdividing project elements into smaller, more
manageable components. Differs from scope definition in that the Output are
activities (action steps) rather than deliverables.
• Templates: Activity lists or portions of activity lists from previous projects.
 Output includes: Activity list, supporting detail including assumptions and constraints,
and WBS updates.

Activity Sequencing:

 The process of identifying and documenting interactivity dependencies.

 Activities must be sequenced accurately.
 Input includes: Activity list, product description, mandatory dependencies,
discretionary dependencies, external dependencies, constraints, and assumptions.
 Methods used: Precedence Diagramming Method, Arrow Diagramming Method,
conditional diagramming methods, and network templates.
 Network templates can include an entire project or only a portion of it. (portions are
referred to as sub-nets or fragments.) Sub-nets are useful where a project includes
several identical or nearly identical features such as floors on a high-rise office building
or program modules on a software project.
 Output includes: Project network diagram and activity list updates.

Activity Duration Estimating:

 The process of estimating the number of work periods needed to complete each
identified activity.
 Input includes: Activity list, constraints, assumptions, resource requirements,
resource capabilities, and historical information.
 Methods used: expert judgment, analogous estimating (top-down estimating), and
simulation.

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Sikkim Manipal University - MBA - PM0011 - Project Planning and Scheduling

Semester: 3 - Assignment Set: 2

 Output includes: Activity duration estimates, basis of estimates, and activity list
updates.

Schedule Development:

 The process of analysing activity sequences, durations, and resource requirements to

create the project schedule.
 Input includes: Project Network Diagrams, Activity Duration Estimates, Resource
Requirements, Resource Pool Descriptions, Calendars, Constraints, Assumptions, Leads
and Lags.
 Methods used: mathematical analysis, duration compression, simulation, resource
levelling heuristics, project management software.
 Output includes: project schedule and supporting detail. schedule management plan,
resource requirement updates.

Schedule Control:

 The process of controlling changes to the project schedule.

 Input includes: Project schedule, performance reports, change requests, and schedule
management plan.
 Methods used: Schedule change control system, performance measurement, additional
planning, and project management software.
 Output includes: schedule updates, corrective action, and lessons learned.

Question 5: What is a business case? List the business related questions answered
using a business case.

Answer:

A business case captures the reasoning for initiating a project or task. It is often presented in
a well-structured written document, but may also sometimes come in the form of a short
verbal argument or presentation. The logic of the business case is that, whenever resources
such as money or effort are consumed, they should be in support of a specific business need.
An example could be that a software upgrade might improve system performance, but the
"business case" is that better performance would improve customer satisfaction, require less
task processing time, or reduce system maintenance costs. A compelling business case
adequately captures both the quantifiable and unquantifiable characteristics of a proposed
project.

Business cases can range from comprehensive and highly structured, as required by formal
project management methodologies, to informal and brief. Information included in a formal
business case could be the background of the project, the expected business benefits, the
options considered (with reasons for rejecting or carrying forward each option), and the
expected cost of the project, a gap analysis and the expected risks. Consideration should also
be given to the option of doing nothing including the costs and risks of inactivity. From this
information, the justification for the project is derived. Note that it is not the job of the Project
Manager to build the business case; this task is usually the responsibility of stakeholders and
sponsors.

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Sikkim Manipal University - MBA - PM0011 - Project Planning and Scheduling

Semester: 3 - Assignment Set: 2

Developing a Business Case:

A successful enterprise produces products, provides service, and completes business strategy
related projects, programs and portfolios to maximize accrued benefits. Enterprises address
their need for growth and change by creating strategic business initiative to modify the
enterprises or create and modify its process or products. The enterprise business strategy,
which is determined at the executive management level, drives the development of the
supporting strategic initiatives and objectives. Thus executive management must be
responsible for developing and planning business strategy initiatives and related business
objectives.

The first management action in the strategic planning process is executive development and
set of strategies that support the enterprise vision / mission. The next step is to create a list of
strategies that describes executive management purpose and scope for each strategy. The final
step in business strategy development planning and a key factor in their successful planning,
development and implementation of strategic initiatives is developing and demanding the
strategic business plan and initiatives that will be adopted to achieve the vision / mission
during the business cycle covered by the document.

It may include, where practicable, the business objectives and related benefits to be achieved.
Business case documents significantly increase the probability of accomplishing the enterprises
business strategies by documenting each strategy in one or more cases. A business case
articulates the intent and desired benefits of a specific strategy in a feasibility study format.
Each business case provides the bases for authorizing further project planning activities, so
that an adequate definition of the intent of each strategy initiative and supporting objectives
can be developed.

The purposes of the business case are to:

 If the official document by which the results of the business analysis of a proposed
business opportunity or identified threat are communicated within the enterprise.
 Document the market, technical, operational and financial analysis for the initiatives.
 Serve as an initial basis for prioritization of the initiative, including its funding and the
allocation of other resources.
 Provide the parameters for measuring how well the initiative was accomplished.
 Get the mile stone by which the initiative will be tracked.
 Established accountability and documentation for the benefits being proposed.

The business case answers the following business related questions:

 How did the initiative come about?

 What is the opportunity / treat / issue improvement being addressed?
 Why in clear and concise terms, is the initiative necessary?
 What is the desired product, service or result?
 What are the benefits to the enterprise and its customers?
 What are the qualitative benefits, such as customer satisfaction, strategic value cycle
time improvements?
 What are the linkages to the enterprise’s vision, mission and value drivers ( that is
mental , quality, efficiency)
 Why will the initiative succeed?

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 Sikkim Manipal University - MBA - PM0011 - Project Planning and Scheduling

Semester: 3 - Assignment Set: 2

 What must be invested to get the desired product, service, result or benefit?
 What are the expected incremental productions or operational costs for the new or
modified product, service, or production process?
 What are the proposed spending reductions, revenue improvements or profit
improvements related to justify the initiative?
 What is the enterprises capital to successfully implement the initiative while meeting
financial objectives?
 What other factors materially impact the potential success of the initiative such as
additional services, required efficiencies, minimum or maximum quantities required
product quality and development objectives?
 What are the concerns, issues and risks?
 What are the parameters and criteria used for prioritizing the initiative with respect to
other business strategic initiatives?
 What is the exit strategy if the strategic initiative is not delivering the desired return or
investment?

The business case document provides a common basis and format for supplying information
required for both business and project – business management planning. The basic information
includes the strategic initiatives, identification and description.

In most commercial businesses, completing a Business Case (project management forms) is

the first step towards initiating a project. The Business Case justifies the start-up of the project
and describes the:

 Business problem (or opportunity) that currently exists in the business

 Alternative options for delivering a solution to resolve the problem
 Benefits and costs associated with each alternative solution
 Recommended solution for approval

The first step in creating a Business Case is to identify the business problem (or opportunity)
that results in a need for a project. Alternative solutions are listed and, based on each
solution's individual merits, a preferred solution is recommended. The last step taken when
creating a Business Case is to define a plan for the implementation of the agreed solution. At
some point during or after the creation of the Business Case, it may be necessary to undertake
a Feasibility Study to ensure that the solutions identified can feasibly be implemented. This is
available in your project management forms.
Once the Business Case has been documented, it is presented to a Project Sponsor for
approval. The Project Sponsor oversees the project at a strategic level. They authorize the
project to proceed, allocate funding from their budget, and ensure that project objectives are
achieved by participating in Phase Reviews. Creating a detailed Business Case is a critical step
in the Project Lifecycle, as it provides the basis upon which the project is initiated. Throughout
the project, the Business Case is referred to frequently to ensure that the project is on track.
For instance, it is used in a:

 Phase Review to ensure that current project costs and benefits are in line with original
projections.
 Project Closure Report to ensure that the project has achieved all the criteria required to
close the project.
 Post Implementation Review to measure the extent to which the project has achieved its
stated objectives.

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Sikkim Manipal University - MBA - PM0011 - Project Planning and Scheduling

Semester: 3 - Assignment Set: 2

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